The Wordmongers' Shop
by paladin1916
Summary: A Christmas bauble
1. St Nicholas'  Day

The Wordmongers' Shop

St. Nicholas' Day

Mary leafed through her third newspaper that morning.

Richard had ordered that Grantham House receive a copy every day of every one of his newspapers.

Most of them were not fit to wrap fish but she had nothing better to do. It was too foggy and dreary to venture out shopping. She had no calls to make and no one was scheduled to call. She could not concentrate enough to read a novel. She could not nap.

Mary leafed through her fourth newspaper that morning.

She sighed . What was she looking for anyway? Inspiration maybe. Christmas at Downton Abbey was coming. Richard would be there. And on New Year's Eve he wanted to make an announcement. He wanted to announce the date of their wedding. She could stall him no more. What was she to do?

An advertisement in the newspaper caught her eye:

Cannot finish your storey? We can help.

Henry, Vollam & Morton, Wordmongers

Horseneedle Street, London

She had seen something like it before. She found it in the second newspaper she had read that morning:

Writer's block? We can help.

Henry, Vollam & Morton, Wordmongers

Horseneedle Street, London

She had her inspiration.

-0-

Mary got out of the cab. The cab drove off leaving her standing in front of a small shopfront. The lettering on the window read:

Henry, Vollam & Morton

Wordmongers

She had no idea where she was. Horseneedle Street was somewhere in the City she supposed. She had not been able to follow the route the cabbie had taken in the early December fog.

Mary was about to open the door of the shop when she felt something bumping up against her leg. She looked down. There was a ginger coloured tabby bumping up against her.

"Shoo cat, shoo!" Mary tried to chase the cat away. It meowed at her but it did not run away. Mary shrugged and opened the door. The cat entered the shop before she could.

A bell attached to the door announced her. The ginger tabby jumped up onto the counter and regarded her with green eyes. After a minute or so a small old man, older than her father but not as old as her grandmother, came out to greet her.

"I see you have already met 'Purity'" he said indicating the cat. "My name is Morton. How may I help you Miss?"

"I understand that you can finish my storey?"

"Yes we can do that. If you indicate the general direction you wish the storey to take we can provide an appropriate ending for you."

"I would like my storey to have a happy ending"

This request did not seem to faze Morton. He reached under the counter and took a large manila envelope and a receipt book. "May I have your name Miss?"

Mary paused. Her reluctance was apparent to Morton who said "Many authors prefer to maintain their anonymity. We will assign you a codename" He again reached under the counter and this time took out a large square of cardboard. There was a grid on the cardboard with the alphabet printed across the top and along the left side. Almost half the boxes in the grid were crossed out. "I see we have just started the 'Ms' so your codename is "MC'". He printed 'MC' on the envelope and on the receipt "May I have your manuscript please?"

Mary took out her diary and slid it into the envelope. Morton handed her the receipt.

"Please follow me. I will introduce you to our happy ending specialist."

Mary followed Morton down several hallways and up stairs and down stairs. The cat Purity followed them both. The heights and widths of the halls varied and Mary got the impression that the shop had expanded into the adjoining buildings. Several of the doors had signs attached, one long hall was devoted to letters: 'Application Letters', 'Reference Letters', Rejection Letters', 'Condolence Letters', 'Love Letters'... They turned a corner. As they were going past a door marked 'Sad Endings' they heard gales of laughter. Seeing Mary's appalled reaction Morton explained "They must have thought of a new way to kill off the hero or heroine." Seeing that Mary was not mollified he said "They must maintain a certain distance from their subject". Seeing that she was still not satisfied he shrugged his shoulders and continued down the hall.

At last they arrived at the door marked 'Happy Endings'. Morton knocked, there was a mumbled reply, and Morton opened the door. He ushered Mary in.

Morton introduced Mary. "Small Lake this is MC. She would like a happy ending to her storey" He handed the envelope to Small Lake, nodded at Mary and left, closing the door behind him.

Small Lake indicated that Mary should be seated in the chair in front of the desk. She sat down. Purity the cat jumped up on the desk and regarded her. A medium sized black and white dog came around the desk and looked at her. She held out her hand and the dog came and sniffed it. It then went and laid down on a rug in the corner.

"I see you have met Wolf" the dog lifted its head at the sound of its name.

"It does not look like a ..."

Small Lake held up his hand "Please let him have his illusions, he is a border collie with the heart of a ...Anyway let us take a look at your storey." He took the diary out of the envelope and started glancing through it.

Mary looked around the office. It was lined with books to the ceiling. The window sill was covered with books. She expected to see dust and cobwebs but the place was spotless.

She considered Small Lake as he read. He was short, as short as Morton and as old. Where Morton was bald Small Lake had bushy unruly grey hair, on his head, eye brows and ears. He wore the thickest glasses Mary had ever seen. He frowned as he read. His countenance defined the word 'dour'.

Small Lake put the diary down on his desk. He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked at Mary. .He had cold green grey eyes, the colour of granite. He cleaned his glasses and put them back on.

"Miss"

"It's Lady" Mary blurted out.

Small Lake started over. "My Lady, the diary format is very difficult for any author to attempt let alone a beginner. It requires the author to be absolutely honest with the reader, The reader is relying solely upon the author's observations as recorded in the diary to understand what is going on. In a real diary the diarist can omit details because he or she knows them but an author cannot do that with a fictional diary" He opened the diary and turned it around so it faced Mary. "Details like names" He pointed at the page "You have used M, R, S, E, F, G, I, C, H etc. With just a cursory examination I have already discovered that you have used M for the diarist's mother and one of her love interests. You cannot do that to a reader. Why don't you rewrite your storey as a third person narrative over the winter and if you haven't figured out a happy ending by then come back and see me in the spring."

Mary hung her head. "I cannot"

"The worst thing an author can do is fall in love with her storey. The secret to success is rewriting and then rewriting again"

"Can you do anything with what is there?"

"What kind of happy ending do you wish? One where the hero and heroine kiss 'The End' and you and the reader both know that in real life they would be at each others throats inside of two months? Or do you want a 'And they lived happily ever after'?"

"The latter. And what has been written cannot be rewritten"

"Very well, leave it with me. Have a good Christmas and then come see me the end of January"

"I don't have that much time. I'm leaving London in ten days"

Small Lake stared at her. The thickness of his glasses magnified the coldness of his eyes. "I am going to give you three options. You can pick any two. You can have the job done fast. You can have it done right. And you can have it done cheap. Which two do you choose?"

Mary had no choice "Fast and right".

"Come back in a week, same day, same time. Bring two hundred pounds with you." He stood up. "I will walk you to the corner, you will have a better chance of catching a cab there. Come Wolf"

Purity accompanied them to the front door. Wolf lead Mary and Small Lake through the fog to the corner. They did not talk. Mary got the impression that Small Lake could walk the length of Britain without making small talk with his companions. As soon as they arrived at the corner he was able to hail a cab for her. He handed her into the cab

"Good night my Lady" and then he and his dog were gone in the fog.


	2. St Lucy's Day

St. Lucy's Day

A week later a cab dropped Mary off in front of the Wordmongers' shop. She still had no real idea as to where she was. If anything the fog was thicker than it had been the previous week.

She had 200 pounds in cash in her purse. It was a tremendous amount to be carrying about and she had been worrying about being robbed. This was most of her personal fortune. People think that because your family is rich you have scads of cash laying about. She did not get a regular allowance from her father. When she needed money he gave it to her. Over the years she had saved 345 pounds from these cash advances, hidden in the bookcase in her bedroom, and now she was going to pay 200 pounds of it to Small Lake.

The ginger cat was waiting for Mary on the front step of the shop. It greeted her with a "Meeow".

"And how are you Miss Purity?" The cat purred and rubbed against her legs.

Mary and the cat entered the shop together.

"Lady MC?" Morton greeted her.

"Yes"

"Please follow Purity. She will lead you to Small Lake's office."

Mary followed the cat. Purity took a different, shorter route than Morton had taken the last time. This time they first went down a short hall which had only door which was marked 'Advice for Couples'. Mary could hear a couple arguing inside. Next they went down a longer corridor which had doors labelled with types of childrens' books: picture books, animal stories, school stories, adventure stories, magic stories ... They turned a corner and they were at Small Lake's office.

"Lady MC. Exactly on time. Please be seated." Small Lake greeted her.

"That is a very remarkable cat. But she has an impossible name to live up to"

Small Lake regarded the cat. "People think 'purity' means always pure. They forget that things can be purified, even souls. What do you take with your tea?"

After they each had their tea Small Lake began. "Having read the whole manuscript my advice to you is to scrap the diary format and rewrite the storey as a third person narrative with S as the protagonist"

"S?"

"Yes she is a strong appealing character who gets what she wants, both with respect to her nursing career and the chauffeur. On the other hand our diarist narrator is too weak for a storey you want to end 'happily ever after'. She vacillates. She lies to herself. She lies to others. She trusts no one. She listens to no good advice but she does follow her Aunt R's bad advice. Twice she has opportunities to go after M when almost any action on her part would have saved their relationship. You might say that she never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And she does nothing but mope during 1915. Worst of all she has an obsessive compulsion to be a martyr by marrying R to 'save the family's reputation' when S's actions have already proven that the family's reputation is quite resilient. She would be a good heroine for a psychological novel wherein she comes to a bad end. I ask again will you consider rewriting your storey?

Mary reeled at Small Lake's comments. "No, I must insist on proceeding with what I gave you"

"Very well" Small Lake sighed. "Your storey started out as an interesting twist on 'Pride and Prejudice' with the diarist, as Elizabeth, eventually falling in love with M as the Collins character. A happy ending would have been easy to contrive at that point. But in a bewildering parallel development

the diarist becomes Lydia entangled with the unfortunate K as Wickham. As an aside I would point out that Miss Austen never resorted to anything as salacious as that death scene. Then R as a bad Darcy rescues the diarist as Elizabeth and Lydia combined. From this point it is apparent they will live unhappily ever after. So we find ourselves in 'Anna Karenina' territory with the diarist as Anna, M as Vronsky and R as Karenin. Are you sure you do not want an unhappy ending? The last entry in the diary could be the diarist as Anna saying that she planning on taking a trip then a postscript by a third party could say that the diary was found on the body of a woman who committed suicide by .. our tragedians have developed any number of possible ways to end..."

Mary shook her head. "No, I need a happy ending"

"I feared as much. You have left the storey in such a mess that there are only two ways to contrive a happy ending. The first is to introduce some sort of deus ex machina to cut the Gordian knot. Something like an earthquake or other cataclysm to get rid of R, but it would leave the reader unsatisfied and I believe you as well."

Mary nodded her head.

"So I took the direct route." he pushed a typewritten manuscript across the desk to Mary. "These are the diary entries required to give your storey a happy ever after ending."

Mary skimmed through the entries. "This seems so.. simple"

"It seems simple because it is simple. Our heroine/diarist, call her X, confesses all to her father and M, our hero, not the mother. They are upset, but not as upset as X fears. After all they have already weathered what I would say is the bigger scandal, S running off with the chauffeur, which is an ongoing scandal, as opposed to the incident with K, which is over seven years old, with the war intervening. The war really did change the way people think about things you know. X breaks her engagement with R. R threatens to publish. She tells him 'to publish and be damned'. Plus she tells R she will give her storey to his newspaper rivals, the storey of how a cad discovered how a young lady had committed a foolish indiscretion in her youth and used it to blackmail her into marriage. Such a storey would prevent his elevation to the peerage. He would never be a true Press Baron. Checkmate. X and M marry, have lots of beautiful, intelligent children and live happily ever after."

"Will it work?"

"It does work"

"Thank you for your work" Mary took an envelope out of her purse and laid it on the desk. "This is for you"

Small Lake took the envelope and put it in his desk. He did not count the cash. "Thank you, it was a pleasure to have been of service to you. Now if you will let Wolf and I walk you to the corner?"

The walk through the fog was as quiet as their last walk.

-0-

The storey played out almost as Small Lake had written it. He had not written the part where Matthew knocked Richard down. Richard almost had a stroke when Mary played her trump card. Nothing had been published. Matthew had proposed on New Year's Eve and they were to be married on February 14th.

Mary wanted to thank Small Lake again when she next was in London but as it turned out she was unable to do so. She asked four different cabbies to take her to the Wordmongers' Shop on Horseneedle Street but she was told the same thing by each. As one said to her "I've been a cabbie in London for more than thirty years, not counting the war, and there is no Horseneedle Street in London. Sorry miss, you must have the wrong address." She went to the municipal licencing office and was told no such business as the Wordmongers' Shop had ever been licenced in London. She even went to the Library and read through the issues of the newspapers she had been reading on the day she decided to visit the Wordmongers Shop. None of them contained any advertisements for such a shop.

When she returned to Downton Abbey she wanted again to read the pages Small Lake had given her. She could not find them. And next time she went to add to her cache of cash she found that she still had her 345 pounds.

-0-

_Gentle Reader may you have a Happy Christmas and may the peace of the world be with you in 2012._


	3. Epilogue: St Valentine's Day

Epilogue: St. Valentine's Day

Anna smiled at Mary. "It's time"

It was about time Mary thought. Just shy of six years since a slightly priggish middle class solicitor from Manchester had pushed his way into ... into the life of a slightly supercilious lady at Downton Abbey. Oh how she loved him. And now her love was going to be made whole.

Mary smiled back at Anna. "Yes, I suppose it is. Shall we go down". Her father was waiting downstairs to take them to the church.

Just then one of the new maids, who was not going to the ceremony, knocked on the door. "Lady Mary, a man delivered this package. He was most insistent that it be given to you before you left for the church."

For an awful second Mary thought Richard had thought of some bizarre way to disrupt the wedding but then she heard the maid telling Anna that "he was a little old man with a ginger cat and a black and white dog..."

Mary held out her hand "Give me the package."

Mary looked at it. The package was a small rectangular box wrapped in a green grey paper that looked like granite.

She unwrapped the package. There was a card and a jeweller's box. She opened the box. Inside was a medal. A heart made of lapis lazuli hung from a royal blue ribbon. Two interlocked 'Ms' in gold were inlaid on the heart. The words 'For Love' were inscribed in the clasp of the ribbon.

Mary looked at the card. On the card was a picture of a ginger tabby sitting inside a shop window looking out. Inside the card was written:

Something blue

Small Lake

Mary smiled. Thank you she thought. She held the medal to her left breast. "Anna would you please pin this on"

"It doesn't really go with the dress"

"Yes it does" Mary smiled at her "Yes it does"

The End

Gentle Reader thank you for taking time from your holidays to read this trifle. I hope to meet with you in the 1920s. Until then adieu.


End file.
